Chapter Fourteen
A disturbance awoke him from slumber.
He had been able to hear the footfalls for hours, scree tumbling from the steep slopes that guarded his nest alerting to the presence of a human. None usually came this far, but the spring melt had passed and snow no longer lingered outside the cave.
With an annoyed grumble, he lifted his head and unfurled his tail. Allowing the barbs to scratch against the cold ground, he waited to see if the human would flee.
Blinking in the sunlight, Aervor stretched his neck out of the nest and halted when he smelled blood, nostrils flaring. He recognized that scent.
Lips peeling back from his teeth, he tasted fear in the air. Fear and determination.
Interesting.
With a step that shook the mountain, he descended the slope to discover a scrawny boy standing outside his nest.
A wiser human would have turned and gone; this one was persistent.
He snorted, more to get the scent of blood out of his nostrils than anything else, but twin plumes of smoke followed and the boy’s already pale skin whitened further.
How much blood had he lost?
A pang went through his very soul as this small human assaulted his senses, dredging up memories better left forgotten. He smelled like Daegal.
Brave Daegal. Selfless Daegal.
This boy, too, seemed brave.
Aervor advanced, cobalt wings tucked tight to avoid scraping the rough stone until he was close enough to see that the boy even looked a little like Daegal. This one’s hair fell to his shoulders, and his limbs were scrawny, but the nose was the same.
Something about the blood bothered him, and he let out a low growl. This was the son of Kolreath’s Dùileach.
The boy began trembling but planted his feet and set his jaw. “I have no other choice,” he declared.
Aervor smelled salt as the boy began to cry, heard him hiss when the wound his own sire had given him stung.
This time Aervor growled with purpose, the boy close enough to touch. The golden dragon did not know how to choose a worthy Dùileach.
Aervor did.
He stretched forward and pressed his snout against the boy’s narrow chest, suddenly aching for the Bond he had been missing for more than sixty years.
With a flash of fire, they were both suddenly, blessedly, less alone.
Queens were not entitled to a reprieve, not even in sleep.
Aemyra had learned this in the week following the battle of Balnain, and she forced the latest troubling dream from her thoughts. Aervor was grieving Fiorean somewhere to the east, and had been sending visions into Terrea’s mind that then leached into Aemyra’s dreams.
Wishing she had access to more history books detailing dragon social hierarchies, Aemyra assumed Aervor and Terrea were able to communicate in a similar way to the Bond.
It would explain the flashes of Fiorean’s memories she had been subjected to for months, which had ended the moment Aemyra had killed him.
She was only grateful that with Terrea as his matriarch, the cobalt male hadn’t decided to pour dragon fire on Aemyra’s army in retaliation.
Pulling back the silk curtains, she looked upon the river.
Balnain was a mess. The once-lush forest surrounding the town had been reduced to blackened twigs, and the verdant riverbank now resembled a bog. Most of the damage had been done by Terrea, but thanks to the sheer number of Covenanters the dragon had felled, the townspeople had been forgiving.
Stories of how the true queen and her dragon had fought to defend Balnain had already spread.
Twisted and savage retellings that were more suited to tales of the true Folk they were so fond of.
While this did much to improve the warmth of feeling toward Terrea and Aemyra, it did nothing to ease her grief.
Her army had won, but with a heavy cost. Hundreds had been killed during the initial wave of the attack, more had been injured or wounded.
She had expected to feel relief, triumph even, when Fiorean was dead. Instead she just felt empty.
A gentle knock sounded at the door.
“I thought I might escort you to the pyres,” Adarian said, stepping into the room in a crimson fèileadh.
The five days of funeral rites were over. It was time for the dead to be released to Brigid.
Adarian cleared his throat. “Brodie brings news that the Athair’s proclamation has not gone over well in the capital.”
“I expected nothing less from my people after a Chosen priest declared himself ‘The Almighty,’ ” she sneered.
Alfred had finally stopped hiding behind false kings and taken power for himself through a regency. Evander’s eldest remaining son had been named heir, but until his eighteenth breithday, Alfred would speak with the king’s voice.
“Has anyone even seen the child?” Aemyra asked.
Adarian’s face was drawn as he shook his head. “None of the children have been sighted in months. Nor have Fiorean’s brothers.”
“Is it possible they have left the city?”
“Colm would have found out. The rebels patrol every point of entry,” Adarian replied, running his hand through his mop of russet curls.
“When the war was between you and Fiorean, people were asked to choose between a true queen they didn’t know or a familiar false king.
But now that Alfred is asking them to choose between a queen or a priest, the rebels in the city grow by the day. ”
She knew this news should be a boon, but Aemyra was struggling to find anything to smile about these days. Katherine still had not been spotted or captured. For all Aemyra knew, the dowager was already in Tìr ùir readying her father’s armada.
“Well, I hope the rebels can hold out a little longer. Another ship has arrived in Edinbane and the southern coast remains our priority.”
“There’s more.”
With an eye roll, Aemyra fingered the bandages on her forearms. “Can’t it wait until our next council session? I know a week’s reprieve is a long time, but it was necessary to—”
“The princesses are gone,” Adarian interrupted.
Aemyra had to clutch the windowsill for support. “What do you mean, gone?”
Fiddling with his sporran, Adarian replied, “The same day Fiorean was spotted flying out of àird Lasair, hours before Balnain was attacked, the princesses left the city.”
Aemyra frowned. “Brodie is certain of this? I thought Colm was sailing then?”
“He was, but upon his return he heard it from Marilde. She witnessed them leaving via a servants’ passageway in the wee hours herself.”
Throwing the window wide, Aemyra sucked in lungfuls of the dewy morning air. “The princesses wouldn’t leave their children.”
“No one knows where the children are,” Adarian said.
“For all we know they aren’t even in the caisteal at all.
With the city wall damaged, àird Lasair will never withstand a siege.
Perhaps all the royals have fled for their own protection.
You always said Fiorean loved his family—maybe he wanted them safely away before another battle. ”
Aemyra supposed it made sense. Alfred and Fiorean both knew she would never set fire to the city as long as a single resident remained in the lower town. They had no need to keep the princesses in the caisteal.
Adarian trusted Brodie’s information and Aemyra had no choice but to trust her brother.
“I have no ships to spare to find them.” She sighed. “Three already pursue Katherine to Tìr ùir.”
Adarian approached slowly, lifting her hands from the window with the utmost care.
“Brodie will go after the funeral rites have been observed, but they may not want to be found,” he said.
Allowing herself a wry twist of her lips, Aemyra replied, “The princesses might not be of much use to Alfred, but they will provide me with vital information about his plans. We must find them.”
With a sigh, she let her brother inspect her bandages.
She had thought that killing Fiorean would ease her mental torment and bring back her magic, but it had facilitated neither.
“Will you not take something for the pain?” Adarian asked, turning her arm over gently.
Stomach roiling, Aemyra shook her head. “No. I deserve to feel this.”
She couldn’t admit to her brother that it wasn’t the burns that pained her.
“Marching on Dildain will be a challenge. Laird Maryk has three clans on his side now, together with the Covenanters,” Adarian warned, as if she had forgotten.
“Which is why I must again stress the importance of finding an antidote,” Aemyra replied, picking at her bandages. “I would rather not resemble a pig on a spit after our next battle.”
Aemyra felt bad for allowing her brother to believe she had fallen prey to the binding agent. But it was easier than admitting the truth.
The queen’s guard had collected enough quantities of both agents from dead Covenanters for Adarian to conduct plenty of experiments.
He rubbed a hand over his face, fingers rasping against his beard. “I have managed to determine the natural components. It appears to be a chemical antagonist, binding to magic in the bloodstream and somehow neutralizing it. We have a suspension that will—”
“Suspension?” Aemyra interrupted, rubbing her temples against a headache forming there.
“A liquid capable of housing both the herbal and magical properties of the antidote.”
“Ah. Have we discovered what they are yet?”
“The herbal element yes, and Eilidh is translating whenever Greer does not have need of her. She thinks we will discover the magical component before we reach Dildain.”
Aemyra smoothed her black-and-ruby gown.
“Well, at last we have some good news,” she said, her voice as hard as the jewels embedded into her corset. “If we march on Dildain with an antidote, we have a better chance at winning. We lost too many last week.”
Closing the window, she looked up at the dreich sky. The weather had been miserable since the battle, as if Aemyra’s grief were heavy enough that the sun dared not touch it.
“How are you feeling?” Adarian asked, his knowing eyes scanning her frame.
“Better,” she replied curtly, unwilling to cause her twin further worry.
Terrea had been violently unwell following the battle.
Evidently Covenanters didn’t agree with her, and the dragon had flown off into the wilderness of the eastern Forc to purge herself.
The she-dragon had remained there, close to where Aervor was now nesting.
In warning or in sympathy, Aemyra wasn’t sure.
“Do I need to prescribe you a restorative draft?” Adarian asked, concerned.
Aemyra raised an eyebrow. “A Pàdraig special?” She glanced toward the half-empty bottle of òmar on the bedside table. “I don’t bother diluting with tea myself.”
Adarian’s smile faded and Aemyra mentally chastised herself for even letting her brother in the room.
“These burns are surface wounds, nothing more.”
Adarian’s sapphire eyes hardened. “You killed your husband. That is hardly superficial.”
The memory of the arrowhead bisecting Fiorean’s spine made her sick to her stomach, and Aemyra pulled an embroidered cloak from the back of the chair with a shiver. “Nonsense. Fiorean’s death has removed one more obstacle from the path to my throne.”
Despite the thick fabric, the cloak did nothing to warm her.
“Come. It will be disrespectful if we are late,” she said.
Looking as though he wanted to pry further, Adarian swallowed his curiosity and followed her. They met Draevan at the bottom of the grand staircase.
Their father’s long auburn hair was pulled into a queue at the nape of his neck and he wore a black fèileadh.
After Aemyra’s success in winning the chimeras to their cause, and leading the defense of Balnain without him, Draevan had been significantly more pleasant to be around.
She also suspected that Fiorean’s death had something to do with the change.
“Are you ready for today?” he asked, falling into step with them.
Aemyra remained stony-faced. “Have I given the impression I wouldn’t be?”
Adarian tightened his grip around her elbow, but since Fiorean’s death, Aemyra’s patience had worn thin.
Steeling herself, she prepared to pay her respects to the people she had sent to their deaths.